Realisations
by Vixen of Light
Summary: James is suddenly aware that they're growing up...


He knows, all of a sudden, he is going to die and in theory it's not such a wrench, shouldn't be, not really, he's had a good, full life for one so young, how he shone in the small confines of a boarding school, and yet, and yet...

He is changing and they all notice. Sometimes Sirius will catch him staring into middle distance, recording all the sights and scents of a moment in exquisite detail, and, half-joking, half-exasperated, confused, would grouse that he had only ever watched Evans like that before. Now it's everything. But at 17 years James Potter has suddenly discovered it's not a game, that the here-and-now matters so much more than he thought because he's, deep down, so afraid that it won't last. James watches the way people walk and the terrible brightness of the sun through the clouds and the shape of birds' footprints as they walk through puddles, wondering if each time is the last time he'll see them. He knows it's neurotic and obsessive and in fact just plain weird but he also knows he's never really looked at the world before. Suddenly it's there, and it's a horrible irony that as soon as there is a world for him to look at, the threat that that world will be gone is palpable enough to breathe.

No-one would believe he was fallible. He loved Sirius like a brother but Sirius saw things in white and...well, Black. There was good and there was evil, and if you rebelled and fought and remained true to yourself, good would win because evil simply couldn't take that sort of hard-headedness. Sirius thought evil was cowardice. James couldn't tell him the times when he sat awake at night and stared at the great gold lion on the wall opposite and wondered if he deserved to be here. He had never thought there was any other place for him and in truth, he couldn't see himself in any of the other houses. Maybe there was nowhere he belonged.

He remembered the time he had found Peter crying a little in fourth year when some Slytherins had teased him and he had ran away from them rather than argue. At the time James had scoffed and slapped Pete on the back and told him he was a _Gryffindor_, that there was no such thing as fear. Now he truly empathised. He wished he could tell Pete that now, but Pete...

Pete was changing, too. Popular opinion among the social _cognoscenti_ of Hogwarts was that the Marauders kept Pete as the worshipping fourth wheel, because boys as proud and brilliant as Black and Potter, and overachievers like Lupin needed an audience to play to, needed a foil to shine against. The truth was that Pete just lived under a bushel. McGonagall might not give Peter marks for his exploding spells in Transfiguration (more often than not it was detention or scolding for failure or carelessness) but she didn't see his quick wit and bright eyes, his ability to come up with just the right prank at just the right moment, the way he had refused to let them give up after the first failure at their Animagus transformation. The way he stuck by them. Pete was more and more distant now; he laughed less, he ploughed through his studies with vicious desperation, he was reluctant to lead the way through the woods at full moon. Maybe Pete was noticing the way the world changed (not with a bang, but a whimper, where had he read that? Was that some old book Evans had left about the place once? It stuck with him in terrible resonance). He wished he could talk to Pete but he didn't know the right words. He'd never needed them before. He was sorry about that, but he didn't know how to put it right, wasn't even sure it was his place to do so.

And then there was Remus, who had always known that the world was precious and terrible; Remus who was the bravest coward James had ever known. And looking back, yes, he could see that the times Remus had overlooked their indiscretions was a form of cowardice – what was courage, anyway? – but that it was done from a love so desperate it was out the other side into bravery. He was ashamed that they could have got Remus into trouble so many times, that they had jeopardised his school career even as they saved his life. James had never realised. This life was like having a thousand veils torn from his eyes and letting cold reality blind him. The only benefit was realising how beautiful it all was, how necessary it was to fight for it. He wondered if Remus thought this every month. He wondered how Remus could have survived so long without simply going mad.

He's caught in his musings by a familiar flash of red hair, the scent of lilac and sugarquills.

"You're always in my favourite chair," says the voice, grouchily, playfully. She's happier to tease him now, he thinks, and wonders why. She just started to, one day, last year somewhen. One day, the irritation and dislike lessened and instead there was an arch, sly playfulness when she addressed him, and a curious expression in her eyes, as though she was trying to read him and what she read there puzzled and surprised her. He was amazed to see such things in her face. He wonders how hard he'd looked at her before that moment, if it had always been there and he'd never known.

"It's a comfy chair," he says. He'd be damned if he'd move for her, with her soft green eyes filled with amused gentleness that didn't match her tone, with her full plushy lips curved up in that half-smile she employed around him, with her slightly bowed posture from the large bag of books she was carrying that made him want to offer to take them for her, even if it would require standing up and therefore losing the chair and...damn!

He stands. "Maybe you need it more than I do," he says, blasé, and reaches a questioning hand for the book bag. She blinks, then inclines her head graciously.

"Such a gentleman," she grins, and unshoulders the bag, sitting delicately down. He places the bag tidily next to her. "You looked in such deep thought there..."

He shrugs, tucking his hands into his pockets, leaning back against the fireplace. "I _do_ think, you know. This reputation for brilliance I seem to have isn't a total fabrication, Evans."

Everyone believed him when he said such things. That was why no-one would believe his fear, his fallibility. For a while he'd truly believed it and then he'd just used it as wry defence.

Sometimes he thought Sirius and Remus saw through him, the way they exchanged a glance, smiled with worried indulgence at him. No-one else.

"And there was I thinking you were growing up," Lily says, and there is an undercurrent to her light tone that makes him look sharply at her.

"Oh?" it isn't exactly witty repartee, but he wants to know what she'll say next. In spite of his...well, growing up...everything with Lily still seems like a game, like they're playing some ancient, complex game of tactics that he hasn't always got the rules for.

"I _do_ notice things, you know," Lily throws back at him, smirking a little. "This reputation I have for smarts isn't a total fabrication, _Potter_."

He mock-recoils. "Ooh, you got me good, Evans, nice, yeah. Very smooth."

"You have this way with words," she tosses her head. "How can I help but want to copy your every hilarious sentence?"

He grins. She looks away, her smile frozen just a little too long. A slight pause.

"You are growing up, though," she says hesitantly, at last. Evans always speaks her mind, even when it's hard, even when she's unsure. Evans has no sides. With Evans, the best way to cheat at their game is to just be honest, sometimes, honest how he can't be with anyone else.

"In a year," he says, quietly, "I'll be fighting. In a year I'll be looking into the faces of people who believe me and my friends should be dead, or worse, and I'll have chosen to do it, and...and that's just how it will be." He can't seem to stop now he's started speaking. With her, he never can, even when it hurts. "I was just thinking about all the things...the things I'll never do, never see. So I guess I'm a coward, really, huh?"

Her appraising gaze softens immeasurably, wonderingly, for a moment before she catches herself, and says, slowly, "I thought you of all people would know that if you think you're going to die, you'll never live at all."

He laughs, shortly. "Live like there's no tomorrow? But I never realised that it was possible that there might not _be_ a tomorrow. I never thought I'd lose. I can sit here and logically think of all the things I'm glad I did and all the things I can cope with not doing, but..."

"James," she says, "We could all die. Anytime, anywhere. But we might not. Everything cuts both ways." He can tell she wants to say so much more but isn't sure it's right to say it to him, not here, not now, not...not him.

"I wish I'd known sooner," he said, dryly. "I've been a prat sometimes, haven't I?"

She laughs. "Yeah, on occasion," she admits. "But you were...oh, you were good at being young, I'll give you that. I was jealous of you, sometimes, because you didn't take anything seriously and you had fun."

It's his turn to laugh now. "You were never," he scoffs. "You were too busy making your perfect potions and turning in your perfect homework and rubbing it into me that I was a prat and you were Prefect material."

"Makes me sound like a little priss!" she snorts, then pauses. "Well, OK, maybe I was, a little. I guess we both needed to grow up a bit."

"Never thought I'd hear you say that!" he says, genuinely surprised. She smiles at him, shrugs.

"No need for false pride here, I guess," she says, fiercely, staring into the fire. "You've _changed_, Potter. If it wasn't for the horribleness of this whole damn situation, I'd say it's been good for you. You're...you're...you _notice_ things now. You never did that before. It was all about you, every damn thing in this school was about you." He notices, to his surprise, an undercurrent of upset in her words. He can't for the life of him figure out why.

"You never noticed...anyone else."

"I noticed _you_," he says, and feels immediately guilty because now he knows how right she is it seems like a selfish, flat thing to say. But it's true. She was always more than a pretty face to him. Maybe everyone else had been a blur to him, bit players in his game. But she had been real.

She looks at him with a genuinely upset expression, and he frowns. "What?"

She opens her mouth, then closes it again, abruptly, blushing a little. He narrows his eyes, searching for her meaning in her features and quite failing to understand. There is a long, slightly awkward pause. _Here and now?_ thinks James, and he thinks about honesty and games and living and all the things he'd never do and the one thing he wanted, so much, for so long...

"Come out with me," he says, kneeling down so he can look into her eyes. "You know, I really don't care about anything else right now. If I die, if I have any regrets, I won't have this one. Go out with me once, at least. See how it goes, and if you don't want to do it ever again, I won't pressure you." _I need you,_ he wants to add and can't, yet. _I think you understand._ He's never felt so truly cowardly or vulnerable in his life, and yet he's doing it anyway. Just like the war, just like so many things.

She raises her head and stares into his eyes for entirely too long, then, haltingly, as if she's not sure she'll even say the words until she's said them, she says, "Yes, alright. I'd like that. It's...been too long."

He doesn't ask since what. At the look on her face, maybe he's just starting to understand. The knowledge leaves him breathless, amazed...alive. So very alive.

She smiles, and he notices every movement in the muscle motion. It's not something he hopes he needs to remember, however. He hopes he'll see that smile every day for the rest of his life.


End file.
